Moody's Investors Service has downgraded the debt and financial-strength ratings of the parent of Chicago-based Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois. Moody's this week said Health Care Service Corp., the nation's fourth-largest health insurance company, has been hampered by higher-than-expected medical costs driven by increased unemployment and layoffs that reduced membership. "The pressures on medical trend and membership growth are expected to...

Eight insurance companies are seeking approval to sell 504 separate health plans next year on the Illinois health insurance exchange, a noteworthy increase from 2014, Illinois said Thursday. The surge in interest in the Illinois exchange allays widespread concerns that carriers would find the prospect of offering coverage under the Affordable Care Act too risky and unprofitable because of sicker-than-expected pools of patients, causing them to walk away. The state did...

In Illinois, the state's largest health insurer has temporarily suspended sales of child-only policies as it seeks state approval for a new product for people ages 1 to 18. Details of the new "Blue Pathway" offering from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois were not available. In a statement, the company said it was "proud to be one of the few health insurers who are offering individual policies to those under age 19 and looks forward to approval as...

Even with his experience as an insurance agent, David Schlossberg found navigating Obamacare painfully frustrating. The Lake in the Hills resident had a relatively simple time obtaining coverage for himself. Signing up his wife and infant son was another matter. Schlossberg said he initially tried to sign up all three as a family but was rejected because his wife, Eloisa, and their son, Jacob, emigrated from the Philippines on Sept. 10. When Schlossberg...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A litigation onslaught facing the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association and its 38 member health plans over alleged antitrust violations has snowballed ahead of a legal status conference scheduled for Thursday. Three more lawsuits were filed last week alleging a conspiracy among the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association and its member plans to divide the U.S. healthcare market into geographical areas that allowed plans to avoid competing with each...

After sitting out the first year, UnitedHealth Group Inc. intends to offer individual policies on the Illinois health insurance exchange next year, according to sources familiar with the company's plans. The decision by UnitedHealth, the nation's largest and the state's No. 2 insurer, has the potential to shake up the Illinois market, which was dominated in 2014 by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois, the state's dominant insurer. Blue Cross this year wrote about 92...

The Chicago-based parent of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois is buying a maker of software designed to help health insurance companies better manage diseases of its subscribers for $121 million in cash. Health Care Service Corp., which operates Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans in Illinois, Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma, said Wednesday that it has reached a definitive agreement to buy Medecision Inc., a publicly traded medical technology...

Chicago's Divvy bikes will become moving advertisements for the state's largest health insurance company under a corporate sponsorship of the bike-sharing program that provides the city with $12.5 million to improve and expand cycling, officials will announce Thursday. City officials deemed the five-year agreement with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois, the highest bidder in a branding competition, a healthy fit aimed at promoting wellness among a Midwestern population that...

With open enrollment for health insurance less than three months away, the nation's largest drug store chain and one of the country's largest insurance groups launched a national educational campaign on the health care overhaul law in an effort to bring consumers up to speed on the coverage they'll soon be required to carry. Deerfield-based Walgreen Co. and the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, an umbrella group for state-based Blue Cross plans across the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A leading federation of Blue Cross and Blue Shield health plans said on Wednesday that it is receiving premium payments from 80 to 85 percent of its new Obamacare health insurance customers. The estimate, released by the Chicago-based Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, reflects enrollment activity among 35 Blue Cross Blue Shield plans in 47 of the 50 states, including plans sold by WellPoint Inc, from October 1 through February 1. That...

Advocate Health Care has agreed to a clinical affiliation with southwest suburban Silver Cross Hospital and Medical Centers that will fold the New Lenox-based hospital into the Advocate system while allowing it to retain its own leadership, name and balance sheet, the two entities are expected to announce Wednesday. Under terms of the affiliation, which is slated to last a minimum of five years, about 300 doctors who practice at Silver Cross will join Advocate Physician...

Battered by months of congressional hearings documenting financial and ethical irregularities by some Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans, the national Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association is adopting stricter new standards. Critics, however, say the new rules on finances and ethics will be difficult to enforce. The Chicago-based association is essentially a trade group overseeing 72 health plans covering 68 million Americans, or about a third of all people with health insurance.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana and two smaller insurers will delay implementing policies to stop poor HIV patients from paying for Obamacare plans with funds from the federal Ryan White HIV/AIDS assistance program. The decision, which the insurers revealed at a federal court hearing on Tuesday, prompted the judge to lift a temporary restraining order that forced them to delay the change in policy for 14 days. On Monday, Brian Jackson,...

Double-billing on policies. Conflicting information. No insurance cards. Four-hour waits to talk to a customer service agent. That's a sample of the problems consumers are voicing about Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois, the state's largest health insurer, and other carriers since the biggest health insurance overhaul in a generation became a reality on Jan. 1. Insurance companies grappling with the complexities of the Affordable Care...

Double-billing on policies. Conflicting information. No insurance cards. Four-hour waits to talk to a customer service agent. That's a sample of the problems consumers are voicing about Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois, the state's largest health insurer, and other carriers since the biggest health insurance overhaul in a generation became a reality on Jan. 1. Insurance companies grappling with the complexities of the Affordable Care...

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois will allow existing individual health insurance policies to be renewed for another year, even if they don't meet new standards set by the Affordable Care Act, the insurer said late Monday. The insurance company, the largest in Illinois, is the first in the state to commit to offering health plans that otherwise would have been canceled as of Dec. 31 because they no longer complied with the health law. Blue Cross...

A little more than 61,100 Illinoisans selected new health insurance policies created under President Barack Obama's health care law through Dec. 28, as a last-minute surge in enrollment helped the marketplaces recover from an embarrassing Oct. 1 launch. The Illinois enrollments are up nearly ninefold from November, when little more than 7,000 selected policies, according to federal data released Monday. Nationwide, nearly 2.2 million selected a plan, with the vast majority...

Blue Cross and Blue Shield Inc. of Massachusetts agreed to pay $2.75 million to settle a major health-care fraud case, the U.S. attorney's office in Boston said. The settlement resolves a 1993 suit alleging that Blue Cross submitted false Medicare reports for Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.

Some consumers are getting more time to pay their Obamacare premiums, as a few insurers have agreed to extend the deadline to the end of January for benefits that begin retroactively from Jan. 1. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois and four more BCBS plans that are part of the privately held Health Care Service Corp. chain have moved the first payment deadline to Jan. 31 from Jan. 10. Others, including Aetna Inc. , said they were...